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Tuesday, May 22, 2012

May Little Black Bag

Little Black Bag time! This is so addicting. There are people that open several bags a month. I've really been trying to limit myself to one a month and have so far been successful. Haven't joined the Little Black Bag club yet? Want to know more? Let's me explain. Little Black Bag is a new subscription service with a twist. It's sort of confusing to talk about but once you get going it's easy.

In a nutshell you join the monthly service and pay $49.95 plus $4.95 shipping and tax (CA & NY) which brings the total to roughly $59 or you can do a one time bag purchase for $59.95 plus $4.95 shipping and tax (CA & NY). You pick out one item to put in your bag from the gallery of 350+ items ranging in price from $105-$12). The deal on the bag is for $49.95 or $59.95 you will receive at least $100 worth of items. So once you pick out your one item you click add to bag and the company picks out 1-3 more items to put in your bag so it's value is at least $100. Now the catch is you don't get to see what those items are until you pay for your bag. They show you the brand and value so you can look through the gallery to see what the possibilities area. The items will change depending on the value of the item you pick out. Once you pick out your item and purchase your bag this is where the twist comes in . You are not obligated to keep any of the items in your bag you can trade them with other members on the Little Black Bag website for items in their bags. This goes on for 7 days. Once the 7 days is over your bag closes and ships. Now if anytime during those 7 days you are happy with your bag and want them to send it to you just click ship my bag and off it goes to your happy little hands. The trading part of it sounds more confusing than it actually is. Say you get a necklace picked out for you that you really don't like. You can go into the gallery pick something you like and offer to trade it for something in your bag. You don't actually talk to the people you are trading with it but you just put your trades out there and hope someone else with an open bag accepts. Tons of trading goes on so don't worry about not being able to trade your items. I have never kept the item I started with and haven't had any issues trading items I'm not a big fan of.

The good:

Like to shop? The definitely fills the shopping need. It feels like you are shopping every time you check the website to look for items to trade with other members.

The value. Your bag is guaranteed to be worth at least $100. My lowest bag was $164 and as high as $300.

The brands. The brands are well very well known. Kenneth Cole, Disney, RJ Graziano, R&Em, Gorjana, Sakroots, and many more.

Multiple treasures. You can score multiple treasures and use them for gifts at a fraction of the cost.

Skip a month? Don't want a bag with month? then skip it. The company sends and email on the 1st of every month and you have 5 days to decided if you want to skip or open a bag. If you forget to skip for some reason they will charge you for that month but you will get double the items the following month.

Need a gift? Send them their own little black bag. You purchase the bag and the company sends the recipient and email saying they received a gift. Who wouldn't love picking out their own treasures! and what a unique gift.

Received your items but didn't like it. LBB will let you return the item for an exchange or refund. The refund will be prorated based on the number of items in your bag and price paid. In an exchange you will receive another mystery item in your bag with a value of within $5 of the exchanged item. I've done the exchange process and it was fairly painless. I had to pay for the return shipping but once the company received the items they sent an email confirming receipt and I received items in my next bag of similar value. The not so good:

The price. Yes $50 a month is a little pricey but if you break it down by item it's not so bad. Also you can use it to find gifts or just skip a month.

Pictures. The show pictures of the items and list the sizes but I would like to see them on a model (real or fake) to see the scale. I have received a couple of pairs of earrings that were bigger than I thought they were going to be.

Want more, more more. You can only open one bag at a time however there is no limit to the number of bag you can buy.Joining. They company allows you to take the style quiz but to actually open your "bag" right away you have to invite 5 friends or post the link on facebook. The other option is to wait for an email from them which takes about a day. I personally don't like the idea of spamming my friends with email or posting stuff on facebook without knowing more about the product so I chose to wait for the email. Once I did sign up I sent an invite to a friend and they still required her to send emails to friends to see her bag. I think if someone sends you an invite you should be allowed immediate access.

Time: In my opinion you need to really be on top of the emails to get the best deals. I'm fortunate enough to have a job where I can check my email frequently can really stay of top my trading for the 7 day period.

It's addicting. Nuff said

This is how my treasures arrived. As you can see the wrap the items in black tissue so it's like a Little Black Bag.

Here is all of my jewelry goodies. I ended up with 3 pair of earrings, one necklace and one bracelet.

This is my makeup items. An eye shadow, and eye lighter and liquid mascara.

Contents of box with retail price in parenthesis.

Cargo EyeLighter in white ($18.00)

Mineralogie liquid eyeliner ($18.00) - this works great. I put it on in the morning, went to work, ran some errands then went to spin class and it stayed on.

Mineralogie fiji eyeshadow ($16.00)

Lydell earrings ($28.00) - these are really cute. I had them in my bag last month and traded them away. I was super excited to get them back this month.

Lydell necklace ($24.00) - I like this but the beads are bigger in person than they looked online.

Zad color block bracelet ($24.00)

Lee Angel beaded hoops ($70.00) - these are really cute but I don't know if they are worth $70. They aren't sterling or gold.

Zad teardrop shell earrings ($20.00)

I started my bag with a purse and two other items the company picked out. I ended up trading all the items I started with. I know a lot of people get the purses, totes, and wallets but I have a ton of purses already and am kind of picky when it comes to those things. The purse I picked out was cool but I wasn't super attached to it so I traded it on a multiple offer trade. In the end my 3 items with a value of about $124 grew to 8 items with a value of $218. Using the cost of the bag (rounding up to $60) each item then cost $8 each. What a great deal!

2 comments:

Oooooh, nice bag! I'm trying to "trade up" but I have a necklace people want that I'm not giving up and they have the earrings I want but they're not giving up lol! On the invite email for your friend, wasn't there a button to skip that step? I didn't send out any email invites to get in my first time.

It's amazing what you can get traded with patience. I've had items I thought I'd never be able to trade. I've also done round about trades to get items I wanted. It's a lot of work but worth it in the end. So when you signed up did it let you in that day without inviting friends? When I signed up it said I had to invite friends to get immediate access or wait for access from them (took about a day for LBB to send me an invite email). That would be great if they changed that!